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Drug Discovery Today Jan 2008Microfluidic technologies' ability to miniaturize assays and increase experimental throughput have generated significant interest in the drug discovery and development... (Review)
Review
Microfluidic technologies' ability to miniaturize assays and increase experimental throughput have generated significant interest in the drug discovery and development domain. These characteristics make microfluidic systems a potentially valuable tool for many drug discovery and development applications. Here, we review the recent advances of microfluidic devices for drug discovery and development and highlight their applications in different stages of the process, including target selection, lead identification, preclinical tests, clinical trials, chemical synthesis, formulations studies and product management.
Topics: Clinical Trials as Topic; Drug Design; Drug Evaluation, Preclinical; Drug Industry; Microfluidics
PubMed: 18190858
DOI: 10.1016/j.drudis.2007.10.003 -
BioEssays : News and Reviews in... Sep 2008Microscale techniques have been applied to biological assays for nearly two decades, but haven't been widely integrated as common tools in biological laboratories. The... (Review)
Review
Microscale techniques have been applied to biological assays for nearly two decades, but haven't been widely integrated as common tools in biological laboratories. The significant differences between several physical phenomena at the microscale versus the macroscale have been exploited to provide a variety of new types of assays (such as gradient production or spatial cell patterning). However, the use of these devices by biologists seems to be limited by issues regarding biological validation, ease of use, and the limited available readouts for assays done using microtechnology. Critical validation work has been done recently that highlights the current challenges for microfluidic methods and suggest ways in which future devices might be improved to better integrate with biological assays. With more validation and improved designs, microscale techniques hold immense promise as a platform to study aspects of cell biology that are not possible using current macroscale techniques.
Topics: Biological Assay; Cell Culture Techniques; Cells; Microfluidic Analytical Techniques; Microfluidics; Miniaturization; Reproducibility of Results
PubMed: 18693260
DOI: 10.1002/bies.20804 -
Chemphyschem : a European Journal of... Oct 2008Microfluidic systems promise solutions for high throughput and highly specific analysis for biology, medicine and chemistry while consuming only tiny amounts of... (Review)
Review
Microfluidic systems promise solutions for high throughput and highly specific analysis for biology, medicine and chemistry while consuming only tiny amounts of reactants and space. On these lab-on-a-chip platforms often multiple physical effects such as electrokinetic, acoustic or capillary phenomena from various disciplines are exploited to gain the optimal functionality. The fluidics on these small length scales differ significantly from our experience of the macroscopic world. In this Review we survey some of the approaches and techniques to handle minute amounts of fluid volumes in microfluidic systems with special focus on surface acoustic wave driven fluidics, a technique developed in our laboratory. Here, we outline the basics of this technique and demonstrate, for example, how acoustic mixing and fluid actuation is realized. Furthermore we discuss the interplay of different physical effects in microfluidic systems and illustrate their usefulness for several applications.
Topics: Computer Simulation; Hemorheology; Humans; Lab-On-A-Chip Devices; Microchip Analytical Procedures; Microfluidics; Models, Biological; Surface Properties
PubMed: 18932153
DOI: 10.1002/cphc.200800349 -
Advanced Materials (Deerfield Beach,... Aug 2014As a technique for precisely manipulating fluid at the micrometer scale, the field of microfluidics has experienced an explosive growth over the past two decades,... (Review)
Review
As a technique for precisely manipulating fluid at the micrometer scale, the field of microfluidics has experienced an explosive growth over the past two decades, particularly owing to the advances in device design and fabrication. With the inherent advantages associated with its scale of operation, and its flexibility in being incorporated with other microscale techniques for manipulation and detection, microfluidics has become a major enabling technology, which has introduced new paradigms in various fields involving biological cells. A microfluidic device is able to realize functions that are not easily imaginable in conventional biological analysis, such as highly parallel, sophisticated high-throughput analysis, single-cell analysis in a well-defined manner, and tissue engineering with the capability of manipulation at the single-cell level. Major advancements in microfluidic device fabrication and the growing trend of implementing microfluidics in cell studies are presented, with a focus on biological research and clinical diagnostics.
Topics: Animals; Equipment Design; Humans; Microfluidic Analytical Techniques; Microfluidics; Single-Cell Analysis
PubMed: 24536032
DOI: 10.1002/adma.201305348 -
Current Opinion in Biotechnology Feb 2014With its continuous progress, microfluidics has become a key enabling technology in biological research. During the past few years, the major growth of microfluidics... (Review)
Review
With its continuous progress, microfluidics has become a key enabling technology in biological research. During the past few years, the major growth of microfluidics shifted to the introduction of new materials in making microfluidic chips, primarily driven by the demand of versatile strategies to interface microfluidics with biological cell studies. Although polydimethylsiloxane is still used as primary frame material, hydrogels have been increasingly employed in cell-culture related applications. Moreover, plastics and paper are attracting more attention in commercial device fabrication. Aiming to reflect this trend, current review focuses on the progress of microfluidic chip materials over the time span of January 2011 through June 2013, and provides critical discussion of the resulting major new tools in biological research.
Topics: Cell Culture Techniques; Elasticity; Humans; Hydrogels; Imaging, Three-Dimensional; Microfluidics; Plastics
PubMed: 24484884
DOI: 10.1016/j.copbio.2013.09.004 -
Analytica Chimica Acta Jul 2013In the last decade, droplet-based microfluidics has undergone rapid progress in the fields of single-cell analysis, digital PCR, protein crystallization and high... (Review)
Review
In the last decade, droplet-based microfluidics has undergone rapid progress in the fields of single-cell analysis, digital PCR, protein crystallization and high throughput screening. It has been proved to be a promising platform for performing chemical and biological experiments with ultra-small volumes (picoliter to nanoliter) and ultra-high throughput. The ability to analyze the content in droplet qualitatively and quantitatively is playing an increasing role in the development and application of droplet-based microfluidic systems. In this review, we summarized the analytical detection techniques used in droplet systems and discussed the advantage and disadvantage of each technique through its application. The analytical techniques mentioned in this paper include bright-field microscopy, fluorescence microscopy, laser induced fluorescence, Raman spectroscopy, electrochemistry, capillary electrophoresis, mass spectrometry, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, absorption detection, chemiluminescence, and sample pretreatment techniques. The importance of analytical detection techniques in enabling new applications is highlighted. We also discuss the future development direction of analytical detection techniques for droplet-based microfluidic systems.
Topics: Mass Spectrometry; Microfluidic Analytical Techniques; Microfluidics; Microscopy, Fluorescence; Spectrum Analysis, Raman
PubMed: 23830418
DOI: 10.1016/j.aca.2013.04.064 -
Annual Review of Analytical Chemistry... Jun 2017Recent years have witnessed an increased use of droplet-based microfluidic techniques in a wide variety of chemical and biological assays. Nevertheless, obtaining... (Review)
Review
Recent years have witnessed an increased use of droplet-based microfluidic techniques in a wide variety of chemical and biological assays. Nevertheless, obtaining dynamic data from these platforms has remained challenging, as this often requires reading the same droplets (possibly thousands of them) multiple times over a wide range of intervals (from milliseconds to hours). In this review, we introduce the elemental techniques for the formation and manipulation of microfluidic droplets, together with the most recent developments in these areas. We then discuss a wide range of analytical methods that have been successfully adapted for analyte detection in droplets. Finally, we highlight a diversity of studies where droplet-based microfluidic strategies have enabled the characterization of dynamic systems that would otherwise have remained unexplorable.
Topics: Biological Assay; Enzymes; Kinetics; Microfluidics; Nucleic Acids; Oils; Spectrometry, Fluorescence; Surface-Active Agents
PubMed: 28375703
DOI: 10.1146/annurev-anchem-061516-045219 -
Lab on a Chip Jul 2016Following the development of microfluidic systems, there has been a high tendency towards developing lab-on-a-chip devices for biochemical applications. A great deal of... (Review)
Review
Following the development of microfluidic systems, there has been a high tendency towards developing lab-on-a-chip devices for biochemical applications. A great deal of effort has been devoted to improve and advance these devices with the goal of performing complete sets of biochemical assays on the device and possibly developing portable platforms for point of care applications. Among the different microfluidic systems used for such a purpose, digital microfluidics (DMF) shows high flexibility and capability of performing multiplex and parallel biochemical operations, and hence, has been considered as a suitable candidate for lab-on-a-chip applications. In this review, we discuss the most recent advances in the DMF platforms, and evaluate the feasibility of developing multifunctional packages for performing complete sets of processes of biochemical assays, particularly for point-of-care applications. The progress in the development of DMF systems is reviewed from eight different aspects, including device fabrication, basic fluidic operations, automation, manipulation of biological samples, advanced operations, detection, biological applications, and finally, packaging and portability of the DMF devices. Success in developing the lab-on-a-chip DMF devices will be concluded based on the advances achieved in each of these aspects.
Topics: Automation; Equipment Design; Humans; Lab-On-A-Chip Devices; Microfluidic Analytical Techniques; Microfluidics; Molecular Diagnostic Techniques; Point-of-Care Systems
PubMed: 27272540
DOI: 10.1039/c6lc00387g -
Advanced Science (Weinheim,... May 2021Delivery and sampling nanoliter volumes of liquid can benefit new invasive surgical procedures. However, the dead volume and difficulty in generating constant pressure...
Delivery and sampling nanoliter volumes of liquid can benefit new invasive surgical procedures. However, the dead volume and difficulty in generating constant pressure flow limits the use of small tubes such as capillaries. This work demonstrates sub-millimeter microfluidic chips assembled directly on the tip of a bundle of two hydrophobic coated 100 µm capillaries to deliver nanoliter droplets in liquid environments. Droplets are created in a specially designed nanopipette and propelled by gas through the capillary to the microfluidic chip where a passive valve mechanism separates liquid from gas, allowing their delivery. By adjusting the driving pressure and microfluidic geometry, both partial and full delivery of 10 nanoliter droplets with 0.4 nanoliter maximum error, as well as sampling from the environment are demonstrated. This system will enable drug delivery and sampling with minimally invasive probes, facilitating continuous liquid biopsy for disease monitoring and in vivo drug screening.
Topics: Equipment Design; Humans; Microfluidic Analytical Techniques; Microfluidics; Nanotechnology; Specimen Handling
PubMed: 34026456
DOI: 10.1002/advs.202004643 -
The Analyst Jan 2012During the past few years, a growing number of groups have recognized the utility of microfluidic devices for environmental analysis. Microfluidic devices offer a number... (Review)
Review
During the past few years, a growing number of groups have recognized the utility of microfluidic devices for environmental analysis. Microfluidic devices offer a number of advantages and in many respects are ideally suited to environmental analyses. Challenges faced in environmental monitoring, including the ability to handle complex and highly variable sample matrices, lead to continued growth and research. Additionally, the need to operate for days to months in the field requires further development of robust, integrated microfluidic systems. This review examines recently published literature on the applications of microfluidic systems for environmental analysis and provides insight in the future direction of the field.
Topics: Environmental Monitoring; Humans; Microfluidic Analytical Techniques; Microfluidics; Publishing
PubMed: 22005445
DOI: 10.1039/c1an15368d